


Just the patron, Just the barmaid

by Sinnymin



Series: Just the patron, Just the barmaid [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-05 01:37:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4160709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinnymin/pseuds/Sinnymin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short drabble hat may turn into something. Robert Gold comes to the bar most nights to see Belle French, the bartender there. He is drawn to her, but holds back, as he thinks he is just another patron. Belle loves his company but can't say anything because she is afraid their social differences are too much for them to be together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just the patron, Just the barmaid

**Author's Note:**

> Short drabbley thing. I haven't written for a while and I want to get back into it. Enjoy! If people like this I may write more.

I think I’m in love with my bartender.

Surely that’s a bad thing. I come in here more often than I should, and sit under the fluorescent glow just to take a look at her, ordering way too many drinks and getting drunker than I normally would. All to see her. And it’s stupid. The amount of times I’ve admonished myself, and promised I wouldn’t go back in, or at least would take a break for a while so she wouldn’t see me as some creepy leech who wants her attention at all times while I’m there. But that’s what I am. So I go, and I go there most nights, ordering drink after drink just so she would look at me. Fix those gorgeous blue green eyes at me and smile with those wonderful pearly teeth.

Surely those smiles are for other people, too. I’m deluded to think they aren’t, but when she looks at me, there’s a sparkle in her eyes. She smiles more, she laughs at what I say. She doesn’t treat me like some clinging parasite like the way I feel I am. Maybe she gets this often. She’s beautiful so she must. I can’t be different, but I like to fool myself that I am ad see the sparkle and the smile and hear the laugh and the joy in her voice. But I second guess myself every time she moves on to another patron because we’re just passing ships, with this bar as our dock and her as its keeper.  
I can’t carry on this way. It will break me eventually.  
~~  
Belle French looked around the bar. He wasn’t there. He hadn’t been for three days, and he came in often. Buying a drink and sitting at the bar and talking with her while she passed by. Snide remarks under his breath about the other patrons, deals gone wrong and stories galore about those who passed by. The gossip she heard from him was riveting, but she loved it when he asked questions. She talked about herself so often to him, but he never said a word about himself. He was an enigma who passed through, leaving her wondering about him every time he left.

Of course she knew who he was. Robert Gold: pawn shop owner and landlord. The most feared person in Storybrooke. She heard the whispers and the rumours, saw the fearful glances and the way people didn’t meet his eyes. But they didn’t see him the way she did. He was witty an funny and surprisingly kind. There was one day when everything had been going wrong for her. A pipe had burs in her apartment, spoiling many old and treasured books Her father had screamed at her yet again for not being present enough at his bedside in the hospital. And she had finally broken things off with Gaston. But he had been there, and had looked at her like she was the only person who mattered.  
Maybe he just wanted conversation. Maybe he was lonely and it didn’t matter who he spoke to. But he never opened up, never said a word about himself and only seemed to want to hear about her life. Ad he didn’t pity her or say comforting things. He listened. In the quiet of that night, where the bar was nearly empty, she sat on a stool behind the bar and talked all her worries away. He didn’t say a word other than to prompt her to say more, and didn’t needlessly say that things happened for a reason or that when God closes a door he opens a window. He wasn’t into that. He just listened. And the next day, when people came to her house to fix her broken pipe, and a bouquet of flowers arrived shortly after with no card or no way to tell who sent them, she knew it was him. But she wouldn’t thank him or say anything, because that’s not how things were.

She was a barmaid and he was a businessman. Rich, powerful, amazingly good looking. With dark eyes and a knowing smirk, sharp dress sense and a sharp tongue, she found herself drawn to him. But she was just his barmaid. And she was nearly certain he just felt sorry for her. There was no way their worlds would mix. He lived in the day, and she at night. Like the sun and the moon, only together for a few hours at a time before the other disappeared back into their own horizon.  
~~  
He had been gone for five days. It was a quiet night when he came in, and she was surprised. She looked up at him and beamed.

“Hey you.” She said. “Long time no see.”

“It hasn’t been that long.” He remarked, sitting down at the stool opposite her. She put her book to the side and stood.

“Whiskey sour?” she asked. He nodded, and she made the drink in record time, knowing just how he liked it. She placed it down in front of him and smiled. “It’s on me.” She said.

“I couldn’t-” he started.

“No, no I want to. Relax. It’s not like I can do much else for you anyway. And I like to thank you for the company.”

He nodded, and brought the drink to his lips.

“Very kind, miss.” He said

“Belle.” She said with a laugh. “It seems strange you coming here so often and never calling me by name. It’s Belle.”

“I know…I just didn’t want to seem improper being too familiar.” He muttered into his drink.

“Don’t worry about that.” She said, and sudden courage flooded her. She placed a hand over his on the bar. “I like it when you come in. I like it when you talk to me. I would like to be familiar.” She said.

A little blush was on her cheeks, and he nearly choked on his drink.

“You…like talking to me?” he asked for clarification.

“I do.” She said quietly. “I don’t really talk with many other people who come by here. You’re a first.”

“I can’t be special, surely.” He scoffed.

“And why not?” she asked

“Because…” he grappled with his words. “You’re so open. And smiling. And, well…lovely.”

Lovely. He had called her lovely. There was no alcohol in her, but she felt warmth running through her body at his words.

“I can’t surely be the only one you talk to.” He continued. “Half of this town wants your attention. I’m just a bitter old man with a chip on his shoulder and a slight drinking problem. What’s so different about me?”

“You’re you.” She said, quietly. She was thankful the bar was nearly empty, with everyone else at the back. It was just them two here. “I don’t know. But when I look at you…I feel at ease. I know you’re much wealthier than I could ever hope to be, and I feel so small compared to you. I’m just a barmaid But when I look at you, I feel…content.”

“I thought I would annoy you by coming here so often.” He admitted.

“No, no!” She exclaimed. “I actually…well.” She paused, her cheeks flaming. “I missed you when you weren’t here.” He didn’t say anything, and she felt foolish. “Never mind, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

She turned to leave, to wash something or do a pointless errand, but he stood on his stool and reached over to take her wrist in his hand. And she felt little electric parks where his fingers touched hers. He had warm hands.

“Don’t go.” He said. She turned to look at him. “I come here for many reasons, but the biggest one of all is to see you.”

She didn’t know what to say. Their eyes met, and she felt like cowering from the intensity of his gaze, but she held strong. And she felt courage kicking in again. She looked at the clock. Her shift was nearly over and Ruby would be there soon to take over. He had let go of her wrist, and she stood there, debating her next choice. As the decision was made, Ruby walked through the door. Belle rushed to the back without saying a word, grabbing her bag, coat and thick woollen scarf.

She came over to his side of the bar, where he looked dejected. She hated that. She grabbed a beermat and a pen from the bar and came over to his side, where he looked up at her quizzically. She quickly wrote something on the mat and thrust it at him before she could shy away from her decision, and without saying a word, bolted from the door so she couldn’t make an excuse or try to take the beer mat back.

Robert watched her go, and the breath left his lungs in a whoosh. The conversation had gone so quickly, and so much had happened. She thought she was just a barmaid? No…there was no way he would ever see her that way. And she missed him. Maybe he wasn’t just another passing ship. He felt confident as he flipped the beermat over to see what she had written.

A number. A phone number. He felt his heart stop. Why would she had given him her phone number?

A beautiful scrawling script was underneath.

Meet me for dinner. I look better away from bar light.  
Belle x

He held the beer mat like it was a priceless objet, and carefully put it in his inside pocket.

When would be the appropriate time to call? If it were up to him, he would call straight away. He would whisk her away to some beautiful late night restaurant and show her that she wasn’t just a barmaid. He wanted to know her. To take the time to talk to her away from whiskey and clearing tables and away from the leering eyes he wanted to gouge out every time he saw them settle on her delicate form. He wanted her. He wanted to know her, talk to her, be with her…to touch her.

A door had been opened. He needed to have the confidence to walk through it.

He would call her tomorrow.


End file.
